November 29, 2011

Animals upon each other, an image from a wall of an old shoemakers in Santiago, Chile / James Franco wearing a Sal Mineo t-shirt, as part of his project Rebel at Art Basel Miami in collab with Ed Ruscha, Douglas Gordon, Paul McCarthy, Harmony Corine (who took this photo) and others / a 1972 postcard of 'Kvarteret Korpen', a street block made famous by Malmö's resident auteur (and my now favourite director) Bo Widerberg in his 1963 film of the same name. The original 1930's block was torn down and this seaweed green and dirty white monstrosity was erected in its place. Every block in Malmö is named, Kvarteret Korpen meaning 'The raven block/quarter'. My apartment is only two blocks up the road in Kvarteret Kråkan' (the crow block) / Pablo Picasso in a backwards bull head /

November 23, 2011

Two book covers from the Martin Beck series, collectively titled 'The Story of a Crime'. Both covers are almost opposites, one a watercolour, the other and photograph; Roseanna showing just the head, while The Man Who Went Up In Smoke shows a business suit in motion, sans body - it wafted away with the title.

The writing duo of Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö each wrote alternate chapters for every book, a sort of collaboration I find particularly amazing - the ability to create characters, from the brains of two people, and keeping a believable continuity to their personalities.

I wonder if you can tell which chapters are written by whom? Did Maj Sjöwall take the odd numbers, and Per Wahlöö the even? Did they switch that around every book, so as not to give the game away? There is something pleasingly rounded and symmetrical about the whole process, in the way I find happiness in every Tintin book being 62 pages long.

November 13, 2011

Out of the twelve official posters by some of Britain's leading artists for the 2012 London Olympics, these three would be gracing the podium, in no particular order. As someone who naturally seems to view things in relation to their surrounds, I automatically gravitated towards the posters I not only aesthetically preferred but also appreciated how they hung together, creating pleasing contrasts of straight lines, fluid paint, and varieties of movement.

November 12, 2011

Today I spent up large at the small record/comic book store by Lilla Torg, coming home with a selection of 9 LP's and 3 45's. The three I found for myself appear to have a sort of orange theme running through them.
Sometimes I forget how much I enjoy shopping for records - I think I had grown weary of it in recent months because I never seemed to find anything, and would always get so flustered at record shops because I could never decide what I was in fact looking for. There is nothing so disheartening as flicking through scores of records and finding nothing piquing your interest. Now I am excited about expanding my collection again, hunting for albums in Malmö and New Zealand, and exploring different music genres.